The Birdcage by Eve Chase

 

Pages: 400

Publisher: Penguin

Released: 28th of April 2022 

Kat, Flossie and Lauren are half-sisters who share a famous artist father - and a terrible secret.

Each has found their way of burying it. Over the years they've grown apart, and into wildly different lives. But an invitation to Rock Point, the Cornish cliff house where they once sat for their father's most celebrated painting, Girls with Birdcage, reunites them.

Rock Point is a beautiful, windswept place, thick with secrets, electrically charged with the one subject the family daren't discuss. And there is someone in the shadows watching the house, their every move. Someone who remembers the girls in the painting. What they did.

The sisters must unlock the truth to set themselves free - and find each other again.

What I Have to Say 

This book was a bit of a flop for me. I liked the setting a lot. It really captured the windswept cliffs of Cornwall well and the weather that was backdrop to the whole book was described really well. I also liked the characters. It was easy to get to know and care for them. But what really put me off was the way the cliffhangers were handled. 

So every few chapters we'd leave the present day story and go back to see what happened to Lauren in 1999. A lovely way to drill up tension and occasionally leave the reader on a cliffhanger desperate to read on, right? Well it would have been if every single cliffhanger hadn't resolved with the characters all safe and happy and the author telling the reader how the cliffhanger had resolved. It's like every bit of action that happened was only half written. I'm not completely against telling. It can work in some circumstances. But in the case of this book, I wanted to stay in the drama and actually see how it was resolved. 

There was also a bit at the end that didn't quite make sense. Something was explained about the grandfather and it was only in one paragraph without much detail. It seems like the sort of thing they might fix before the finished copy though. 

All in all, not the best read for me. 

My thanks go to Penguin and Netgalley for providing me with this copy for review. 

Sing by Vivi Green

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 320

Publisher: Harper Collins Children's Books 

Released: 2nd of June 2016 

America’s most famous pop star flees the spotlight to recover from her latest break-up in Maine – only to fall for a local boy and be faced with an impossible choice at the end of the summer: her new guy, or her music.

Multiplatinum pop icon Lily Ross’s biggest hits and biggest heartbreaks (because they are one and the same):

1. AGONY. (That feeling when her ex ripped her heart out of her chest and she never saw it coming.)

2. GHOSTS. (Because even famous people are ghosted by guys sometimes. And it sucks just as much.)

3. ONCE BITTEN. (As in: twice shy. Also, she’s never dating an actor or a musician ever again.)

But this summer’s going to be different. After getting her heart shattered, Lily is taking herself out of the spotlight and heading to a small island in middle-of-nowhere Maine with her closest friends. She has three months to focus on herself, her music, her new album. Anything but guys.

That is… until Lily meets sweet, down-to-earth local Noel Bradley, who is so different from anyone she’s ever dated. Suddenly, Lily’s “summer of me” takes an unexpected turn, and she finds herself falling deeper and harder than ever before. But Noel isn’t interested in the limelight. She loves Noel-but she loves her fans, too. And come August, she may be forced to choose.

What I Have to Say 

I feel there was too much romance in this book. It's not that I'm against romance, though I do think a lot of YA books insert romance in when it's not necessary to the plot far too often. And it's not that I think that Noel and Lily's relationship shouldn't have been part of the book. I just think that it should have happened differently, that the emphasis shouldn't have been on whether or not they end up together. 

I just feel that the whole point of the book, of Lily leaving the city and her schedule behind, was to learn how to live and write music on her own, without a man in her life. While part of the story was concluded, I feel that it wasn't quite as strong as it should have been. I feel that Lily didn't really stand up for herself and say "No, I need to be alone for a while" like I would have liked. 

Though it fell flat to me on that one issue, the rest of the book was enjoyable and interesting. I liked the viewpoint of a big name celebrity and how nice a person Lily was. Often in books, celebrities can come off as jerks, so it was a really cool concept. 

This is perhaps not one that I'd go out of my way to recommend, but if you think it sounds interesting then I'd definitely say to read it! 

My thanks go to Netgalley and Harper Collins for providing me with this copy for review. 

Darkmere by Helen Maslin

Synopsis (From Goodreads) 

Pages: 368

Publisher: Chicken House

Released: 6th August 2015

A castle. A curse. A dangerous summer. Leo has invited Kate and a few friends to spend the summer at his inheritance, Darkmere Castle: as wild and remote as it is beautiful. Kate thinks it will be the perfect place for her and Leo to get together - but instead, she's drawn into the dark story of a young nineteenth-century bride who haunts the tunnels and towers of the house. And whose curse now hangs over them all. 

What I Have to Say 

I love the combinations of this book, the teenagers going to stay in the castle (well technically not a castle) for a fun holiday, the creepy dark nights and the story of Eleanor, the original mistress of Darkmere interwoven throughout the story. 

A lot of my favourite parts were the ones with Eleanor. I like that period of history and the female side of things a lot, I mean who doesn't like a period drama? Also the relationship between Eleanor and St. Cloud was really interesting and had a wonderful Brontë-esque feel to it. 

I also loved the way it could transition so quickly between the fun, happy teenagers-on-the-beach scenes into the creepy haunted castle scenes.  It always felt very smooth even though they are such different types of scenes and atmosphere. 

This is an essential book for people who like dark, creepy gothic books.